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It’s really inconvenient that applied philosophy isn’t one-size-fits-all. It’s all situational, it’s all context, and if it weren’t and life actually worked by the rules of direct cause and effect, then there would have been no need for the human ability of higher cognitive processing and we’d all still be apes.

What feels good, is good. Evaluate the cost/ benefit ratio, factor in the law of diminishing returns, and gauge goodness by the greater of the sums of utils.God is Good; the bible is an ancient Ask Abby.Good is defined by what is normative; what would most people do?Life is short, no day but todayLive for yourself, present and future; keep all doors open.What is Good is relative, it’s all relative. ( the ultimate cop-out philosophy)There is no good or bad, moral or immoarl; our perceptions of truth are our truth and not the truth in this vast, limitless universe and beyond.what is good is natural.Life is suffering; minimize it to find goodness and happiness.

They all make sense every now and again. But I’m on the market for a life philosphy that’s like my trusty pair of slippers; I can use it daily and it provides me with great comfort.

Reader, if you know any good mantras to be a general rule of thumb, holler at your girl.

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It’s really inconvenient that applied philosophy isn’t one-size-fits-all. It’s all situational, it’s all context, and if it weren’t and life actually worked by the rules of direct cause and effect, then there would have been no need for the human ability of higher cognitive processing and we’d all still be apes.

What feels good, is good. Evaluate the cost/ benefit ratio, factor in the law of diminishing returns, and gauge goodness by the greater of the sums of utils.God is Good; the bible is an ancient Ask Abby.Good is defined by what is normative; what would most people do?Life is short, no day but todayLive for yourself, present and future; keep all doors open.What is Good is relative, it’s all relative. ( the ultimate cop-out philosophy)There is no good or bad, moral or immoarl; our perceptions of truth are our truth and not the truth in this vast, limitless universe and beyond.what is good is natural.Life is suffering; minimize it to find goodness and happiness.

They all make sense every now and again. But I’m on the market for a life philosphy that’s like my trusty pair of slippers; I can use it daily and it provides me with great comfort.

Reader, if you know any good mantras to be a general rule of thumb, holler at your girl.

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The root to most of the world’s problems past and present is disguised under a sophisticated accent and a bold red coat. The British are the personified Plague of the human species. My white guilt runs really deep–that’s what she said. And by she, I mean that hypnotic Motherland we hail to and universal chambers of arian dominated confessional booths in every territory she has intimately touched or internally terrorized through colonization. To be white is to be void of authentic definition and only conceptualized in contrast to the less than flattering labels thrown on the Others, and The White Privilege is the offspring of that phenomenon. Being born while is entering the world as tabla rasa, a blank white slate which could be made into a masterpiece an invaluable, defining part of society, or just another neglected plain Jane piece of white paper.Don’t get me wrong, I still hold class lines and bank accounts to be the sparsely pored separating shield between defendant and prosecution, social welfare leftovers and the creme of the crop, incarceration,obligation, and authoritative masturbation. However, race is still an underlying method of social segregation; is a black or white person more likely to get a loan? Money begets more money, but how can a minority rise up and participate in this capitalist economy to make a profit if they have no fiscal capital to to take any risks because their own country doesn’t have the balls to invest in their humanity: loans for education, housing, higher paying jobs, etc. And you know what? It’s hard to believe in oneself when nobody else does.

Humor me here by participating in this thought experiment. My thought is that the Judeo-Christian concept of morality as interpreted and applied in modern society is MORE of a reflection of the normative white socio-economic status and LESS of a rigid and stable code of conduct resilient to circumstance. Here’s the hypothetical situation:

Welcome to Wall Mart, single Mom! You have twin babies at home, and are scavenging through your purse for that $20 bill you packed with you to replenish your supply for a ceasely demand for diapers. Unfortunately, you don’t have the resources ( time, energy, money) to be eco-friendly about it, especially since the children’s father started viewing child support as choice. You have exactly 20$. Which means you get diapers or dinner for the next 2 nights? No one is looking at you. You’re by the Gerber baby food. do you stuff it in your purse? Do you steal? Would you steal?Hell yes, I would. A parent’s love for their child and spiritual covenant with them I would say runs deeper than upholding every pillar of a religious tenant because white men in beards wrote it down in the land before time. A Rabbi once argued at me that every sin is a form of stealing. And much like the Rabbi, I think the lawmakers in this country would agree that the single mother shoplifting is criminal and fine her ( so she is more broke), or arrest her ( so she losses a job and is more broke) , or find some other creative form of retribution to rub her face in shit and wag their fingers at her as if she were a 4 legged bitch: bad girl, bad bad girl. Alls I’m saying is that moarlity is relitive and circumstantial, and I would do the same thing in the single mom’s shoes, so the only difference between her and me is that I was not born into a barren community with petty excuses for education and rampant unemployment. I was born into privlage, and i happen to be white, and privlage also begets more privilage.

I forgot where this entire entry was going. ill finish it tomorrow.Humph.

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The root to most of the world’s problems past and present is disguised under a sophisticated accent and a bold red coat. The British are the personified Plague of the human species. My white guilt runs really deep–that’s what she said. And by she, I mean that hypnotic Motherland we hail to and universal chambers of arian dominated confessional booths in every territory she has intimately touched or internally terrorized through colonization. To be white is to be void of authentic definition and only conceptualized in contrast to the less than flattering labels thrown on the Others, and The White Privilege is the offspring of that phenomenon. Being born while is entering the world as tabla rasa, a blank white slate which could be made into a masterpiece an invaluable, defining part of society, or just another neglected plain Jane piece of white paper.Don’t get me wrong, I still hold class lines and bank accounts to be the sparsely pored separating shield between defendant and prosecution, social welfare leftovers and the creme of the crop, incarceration,obligation, and authoritative masturbation. However, race is still an underlying method of social segregation; is a black or white person more likely to get a loan? Money begets more money, but how can a minority rise up and participate in this capitalist economy to make a profit if they have no fiscal capital to to take any risks because their own country doesn’t have the balls to invest in their humanity: loans for education, housing, higher paying jobs, etc. And you know what? It’s hard to believe in oneself when nobody else does.

Humor me here by participating in this thought experiment. My thought is that the Judeo-Christian concept of morality as interpreted and applied in modern society is MORE of a reflection of the normative white socio-economic status and LESS of a rigid and stable code of conduct resilient to circumstance. Here’s the hypothetical situation:

Welcome to Wall Mart, single Mom! You have twin babies at home, and are scavenging through your purse for that $20 bill you packed with you to replenish your supply for a ceasely demand for diapers. Unfortunately, you don’t have the resources ( time, energy, money) to be eco-friendly about it, especially since the children’s father started viewing child support as choice. You have exactly 20$. Which means you get diapers or dinner for the next 2 nights? No one is looking at you. You’re by the Gerber baby food. do you stuff it in your purse? Do you steal? Would you steal?Hell yes, I would. A parent’s love for their child and spiritual covenant with them I would say runs deeper than upholding every pillar of a religious tenant because white men in beards wrote it down in the land before time. A Rabbi once argued at me that every sin is a form of stealing. And much like the Rabbi, I think the lawmakers in this country would agree that the single mother shoplifting is criminal and fine her ( so she is more broke), or arrest her ( so she losses a job and is more broke) , or find some other creative form of retribution to rub her face in shit and wag their fingers at her as if she were a 4 legged bitch: bad girl, bad bad girl. Alls I’m saying is that moarlity is relitive and circumstantial, and I would do the same thing in the single mom’s shoes, so the only difference between her and me is that I was not born into a barren community with petty excuses for education and rampant unemployment. I was born into privlage, and i happen to be white, and privlage also begets more privilage.

I forgot where this entire entry was going. ill finish it tomorrow.Humph.

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Prong One: The Dentist-I look forward to dentist appointments. I brush, I occasionally floss, and thus, I get great performance reviews on my oral hygiene. And who doesn’t like a nice pat from a latex glove and a smile from behind a paper-elastic mouth shield? But like all great things, there are speckled defeats on the road to victory. And yesterday, yesterday was an oral catastrophe.

My filling had fallen out. I went to a dentist’s office I’d never been to before. They isolated my tooth via dental damn, Popsicle sticks and a metal clamp for over and our. Told me they wanted to start a root canal, and then proceeded to ask me what i wanted them to do…while my mouth was jarred open and covered…so i couldn’t possibly ask questions or respond. They decided to start a root canal. paralyzed the right side of my mouth with umpteen shots of Novocaine. And after the Dougie Howser dentist had dug down to the root of my tooth, he changed his mind. Stopped the root canal procedure. Refilled my tooth with a cap. Those extra 4 shots of Novocaine were useless. All the while, the hygienist tripped on the main chord turning off the equipment, snapped at me for a ringing phone which made her jump when she had the wrench in my mouth and told me this was too dangerous for distractions, she chatted with the hygienist next to her about the mistakes they had made on patients, she forced me to bite down on something after i refused because i could taste blood from the contraption ripping at my cheek, the dentist talked to me about all the bleeding in my mouth mid procedure (comforting, right?), and the list goes on. And my mouth still hurts.

Prong Two: The Deception-I’d read Running With Scissors before, and last night I saw the movie. In a coin purse, it’s based off the book which is the memoir of a boy who became a man and thought his life was worth publishing and reading about. After his memoir came out, the real life characters in his book were livid and sued, saying his perception was far from the truth, a fabrication loosely based on reality, and unflattering. This is concerning. What is the truth is not perception of an individual? Even things that are deemed scientific fact and limited to isolating something measurable to human perception and measurement. How much poetic licence does one have when writing a memoir? Is there a No Symbolism Allowed rule to avoid any fiction sensationalism?

Prong Three: The Democrats-Obama, the Presumed nominee for the democratic presidential ticked, is shopping for a nice VP running mate. This is a headache. John McCain naturally is up to bigger and better things. Like knocking Obama’s stance on slowly but surely pulling out of Iraq. Why? Because, he argues, it is necessary that America keep fighting in Iraq until we have won or else we will need to go back later. I’m all for finishing projects one starts, like scarves and spring cleaning, but how can we win a war with no logical purpose or mission? Yes, we’ve set up a semi-permanent military base over there so we can keep a vigilant eye on China and India. Yes, we are leaving tank tracks on top of soil blanketing heaps of potential oil. But it doesn’t take a genius to see that our oil prices aren’t going down. In fact, they’re rising-gasp. Maybe if we redirected the money we were spending on the war and instead subsidized oil prices, we could re inflate our own miserable economy the good ol republican way, through people spending their dollars buying and selling to each other and having the wealth trickle down. Wasn’t that the point of the tax returns, anyway? Maybe they should have saved the abundance for a rainy day, or, i don’t know, paying back the national debt to both lower the sum and the amount of interest we pay on it ( third highest national expense). But I digress. John McCain says that we must stay in Iraq until we * bring Osama bin Laden to justice through a process similar to the Nuremberg Trials.* I agree, but here’s a tip: LOOK IN THE FUCKING COUNTRY HE’S FROM. Which is not Iraq. Dumb ass. How have Americans still not caught onto this mass deception?

I’m going to go hit the sauna. But oh, am I ever Proud to be paying my tax dollars to the Land of the Free.

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Prong One: The Dentist-I look forward to dentist appointments. I brush, I occasionally floss, and thus, I get great performance reviews on my oral hygiene. And who doesn’t like a nice pat from a latex glove and a smile from behind a paper-elastic mouth shield? But like all great things, there are speckled defeats on the road to victory. And yesterday, yesterday was an oral catastrophe.

My filling had fallen out. I went to a dentist’s office I’d never been to before. They isolated my tooth via dental damn, Popsicle sticks and a metal clamp for over and our. Told me they wanted to start a root canal, and then proceeded to ask me what i wanted them to do…while my mouth was jarred open and covered…so i couldn’t possibly ask questions or respond. They decided to start a root canal. paralyzed the right side of my mouth with umpteen shots of Novocaine. And after the Dougie Howser dentist had dug down to the root of my tooth, he changed his mind. Stopped the root canal procedure. Refilled my tooth with a cap. Those extra 4 shots of Novocaine were useless. All the while, the hygienist tripped on the main chord turning off the equipment, snapped at me for a ringing phone which made her jump when she had the wrench in my mouth and told me this was too dangerous for distractions, she chatted with the hygienist next to her about the mistakes they had made on patients, she forced me to bite down on something after i refused because i could taste blood from the contraption ripping at my cheek, the dentist talked to me about all the bleeding in my mouth mid procedure (comforting, right?), and the list goes on. And my mouth still hurts.

Prong Two: The Deception-I’d read Running With Scissors before, and last night I saw the movie. In a coin purse, it’s based off the book which is the memoir of a boy who became a man and thought his life was worth publishing and reading about. After his memoir came out, the real life characters in his book were livid and sued, saying his perception was far from the truth, a fabrication loosely based on reality, and unflattering. This is concerning. What is the truth is not perception of an individual? Even things that are deemed scientific fact and limited to isolating something measurable to human perception and measurement. How much poetic licence does one have when writing a memoir? Is there a No Symbolism Allowed rule to avoid any fiction sensationalism?

Prong Three: The Democrats-Obama, the Presumed nominee for the democratic presidential ticked, is shopping for a nice VP running mate. This is a headache. John McCain naturally is up to bigger and better things. Like knocking Obama’s stance on slowly but surely pulling out of Iraq. Why? Because, he argues, it is necessary that America keep fighting in Iraq until we have won or else we will need to go back later. I’m all for finishing projects one starts, like scarves and spring cleaning, but how can we win a war with no logical purpose or mission? Yes, we’ve set up a semi-permanent military base over there so we can keep a vigilant eye on China and India. Yes, we are leaving tank tracks on top of soil blanketing heaps of potential oil. But it doesn’t take a genius to see that our oil prices aren’t going down. In fact, they’re rising-gasp. Maybe if we redirected the money we were spending on the war and instead subsidized oil prices, we could re inflate our own miserable economy the good ol republican way, through people spending their dollars buying and selling to each other and having the wealth trickle down. Wasn’t that the point of the tax returns, anyway? Maybe they should have saved the abundance for a rainy day, or, i don’t know, paying back the national debt to both lower the sum and the amount of interest we pay on it ( third highest national expense). But I digress. John McCain says that we must stay in Iraq until we * bring Osama bin Laden to justice through a process similar to the Nuremberg Trials.* I agree, but here’s a tip: LOOK IN THE FUCKING COUNTRY HE’S FROM. Which is not Iraq. Dumb ass. How have Americans still not caught onto this mass deception?

I’m going to go hit the sauna. But oh, am I ever Proud to be paying my tax dollars to the Land of the Free.

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Plus, a self-portrait. The camera flash kinda f’ed up the white sheen paint on my lip and brows, but you get the picture…ha. punny. not quite real life, but then again, it’s not like i have a ninja turtle named after me or anything.

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Plus, a self-portrait. The camera flash kinda f’ed up the white sheen paint on my lip and brows, but you get the picture…ha. punny. not quite real life, but then again, it’s not like i have a ninja turtle named after me or anything.

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Daddy , if I find a way to be more non-existent, I’ll let you know.Through my actions: I would be persistently and fiercely pleasant like the daughters on family television, as deep as a surface smile and a glamorous yet understated mirror of outstanding parenting. I would sanitize every surface i touched, not a fingerprint of evidence of my consumption of light, water or energy to be found. I would defy the human shackles of dependence and be powered by love, and love alone. I would be selfless and tame. I would be be extraordinarily ordinary. Daddy, I’m sorry.

Daddy, I’m sorry my moods oscillates like the bounce of my curls, and my eyes observe with the intense fire personified in my red-hot mane. I’m sorry for my insatiable appetite for questions, hypothetical and real, and endless battle for a best fitting answer. I’m sorry for being a living paradox and a tireless controversy. I’m sorry that shadows and skeletons have a magnetic attraction to me and I seem to bring out the worst of things in your presence. Daddy, I’m sorry.

Daddy, I’m sorry my my heart is locked inside an icebox behind bones and bars visible to the human eye. I’m sorry for my weaknesses and my strengths, because really they are one in the same. I’m sorry I’m not your little girl, that I never was, nor ever desire to be. I’m sorry what you call parenting I call patronizing, what you call love I call guilt-evoking selfishness. I suppose if I adapted to your dictionary, life would be much more simple.

Daddy, I’m sorry for all of the trouble I’ve caused between you and Mom. I’m sorry for the divorce scares and for being the termite eating away at your marital foundation.

For being me, I’m sorry, but I cannot and will not be anyone else. So take me or leave me, Daddy, is all I have to say.

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Daddy , if I find a way to be more non-existent, I’ll let you know.Through my actions: I would be persistently and fiercely pleasant like the daughters on family television, as deep as a surface smile and a glamorous yet understated mirror of outstanding parenting. I would sanitize every surface i touched, not a fingerprint of evidence of my consumption of light, water or energy to be found. I would defy the human shackles of dependence and be powered by love, and love alone. I would be selfless and tame. I would be be extraordinarily ordinary. Daddy, I’m sorry.

Daddy, I’m sorry my moods oscillates like the bounce of my curls, and my eyes observe with the intense fire personified in my red-hot mane. I’m sorry for my insatiable appetite for questions, hypothetical and real, and endless battle for a best fitting answer. I’m sorry for being a living paradox and a tireless controversy. I’m sorry that shadows and skeletons have a magnetic attraction to me and I seem to bring out the worst of things in your presence. Daddy, I’m sorry.

Daddy, I’m sorry my my heart is locked inside an icebox behind bones and bars visible to the human eye. I’m sorry for my weaknesses and my strengths, because really they are one in the same. I’m sorry I’m not your little girl, that I never was, nor ever desire to be. I’m sorry what you call parenting I call patronizing, what you call love I call guilt-evoking selfishness. I suppose if I adapted to your dictionary, life would be much more simple.

Daddy, I’m sorry for all of the trouble I’ve caused between you and Mom. I’m sorry for the divorce scares and for being the termite eating away at your marital foundation.

For being me, I’m sorry, but I cannot and will not be anyone else. So take me or leave me, Daddy, is all I have to say.

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I made my first challah, from scratch. Rose the yeast my self, let the bread leven twice, beat the living air out of it, loved it, kneaded it, baked it, glazed it–the whole kitchen kaboodle.

And guess what? it actually turned out. I took pictures. Which i do realize is lame; however, I did not realize i could cook until last week so the victory is much sweeter. Toast to hidden abilities ( pun intended.)

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1. I just remembered this blog and I’m not sure if anyone checks it anymore, but I’m trying!2. I MISS YOU LIKE WHOA3. I’m in Africa, just spent 2 weeks in Botswana, now in Namibia for the weekend, about to go leave to go dune surfing, then back to Botswana tomorrow, off to Dog Camp for two days to live in the wild in harmony with the animals, then Capetown, Jburg, and back hoooome (via Frankfurt, Chicago, and Portland)xxxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxlooooovexoxoxoxoxoxox

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I made my first challah, from scratch. Rose the yeast my self, let the bread leven twice, beat the living air out of it, loved it, kneaded it, baked it, glazed it–the whole kitchen kaboodle.

And guess what? it actually turned out. I took pictures. Which i do realize is lame; however, I did not realize i could cook until last week so the victory is much sweeter. Toast to hidden abilities ( pun intended.)